The Twelfth Card (15 page)

“What’s ‘bingo’?” Rhyme asked.

Sellitto said, “A canvass team in Little Italy—a half block from where they had the Columbus Day fair—just found a discount store on Mulberry Street. The clerk remembered a middle-aged white guy who bought everything in the unsub’s rape pack a few days ago. She remembered him because of the hat.”

“He wore a hat?”

“No, he bought a hat. A stocking cap. Only why she remembered him was because when he tried it on he pulled it down over his face. She saw him in a security mirror. She thought he was going to rob her. But then he took it off and put it in the basket with everything else and just paid and left.”

The missing $5.95 item on the receipt probably. Trying it on to make sure it would work as a mask. “It’s probably also what he rubbed his own prints off with. Does she know his name?”

“No. But she can describe him pretty good.”

Sachs said, “We’ll do a composite and hit the streets.” Grabbing her purse, she was at the door before she realized the big detective wasn’t with her. She stopped. Looked back. “Lon, you coming?”

Sellitto didn’t seem to hear. She repeated the question and the detective blinked. He lowered his hand from his reddened cheek. And grinned. “Sorry. You bet. Let’s go nail this bastard.”

AFRICAN-AMERICAN MUSEUM SCENE

• Rape pack:

  • Tarot card, twelfth card in deck, The Hanged Man, meaning spiritual searching.

  • Smiley-face bag.

    • Too generic to trace.

  • Box cutter.

  • Trojan condoms.

  • Duct tape.

  • Jasmine scent.

  • Unknown item bought for $5.95. Probably a stocking cap.

  • Receipt, indicating store was in New York City, discount variety store or drugstore.

  • Most likely purchased in a store on Mulberry Street, Little Italy. Unsub identified by clerk.

• Fingerprints:

  • Unsub wore latex or vinyl gloves.

  • Prints on items in rape pack belonged to person with small hands, no IAFIS hits. Possibly clerk’s.

• Trace:

  • Cotton rope fibers, some with traces of human blood. Garrotte?

    • No manufacturer.

    • Sent to CODIS.

      • No DNA match in CODIS.

• Popcorn and cotton candy with traces of canine urine.

  • Connection with carnival or street fair? Checking with Traffic about recent permits. Officers presently canvassing street fairs, per info from Traffic.

    • Confirm festival was in Little Italy.

• Weapons:

  • Billy club or martial arts weapon.

  • Pistol is a North American Arms .22 rimfire magnum, Black Widow or Mini-Master.

  • Makes own bullets, bored-out slugs filled with needles. No match in IBIS or DRUGFIRE.

• Motive:

  • Uncertain. Rape was probably staged.

  • True motive may have been to steal microfiche containing July 23, 1868, issue of
Coloreds’ Weekly Illustrated
magazine and kill G. Settle because of her interest in an article for reasons unknown. Article was about her ancestor Charles Singleton (see accompanying chart).

  • Librarian victim reported that someone else wished to see article.

    • Requesting librarian’s phone records to verify this.

      • No leads.

    • Requesting information from employees as to other person wishing to see story.

      • No leads.

  • Searching for copy of article.

    • Several sources report man requested same article. No leads to identity. Most issues missing or destroyed. One located. (See accompanying chart.)

  • Conclusion: G. Settle possibly still at risk.

• Profile of incident sent to VICAP and NCIC.

  • Murder in Amarillo, TX, five years ago. Similar M.O.—staged crime scene (apparently ritual killing, but real motive unknown).

  • Murder in Ohio, three years ago. Similar M.O.—staged crime scene (apparently sexual assault, but real motive probably hired killing). Files missing.

PROFILE OF UNSUB 109

• White male.

• 6 feet tall, 180 lbs.

• Average voice.

• Used cell phone to get close to victim.

• Wears three-year-old, or older, size-11 Bass walkers, light brown. Right foot slightly outturned.

• Additional jasmine scent.

• Dark pants.

• Ski mask, dark.

• Will target innocents to help in killing victims and escaping.

• Most likely is a for-hire killer.

PROFILE OF PERSON HIRING UNSUB 109

• No information at this time.

PROFILE OF CHARLES SINGLETON

• Former slave, ancestor of G. Settle. Married, one son. Given orchard in New York state by master. Worked as teacher, as well. Instrumental in early civil rights movement.

• Charles allegedly committed theft in 1868, the subject of the article in stolen microfiche.

• Reportedly had a secret that could bear on case. Worried that tragedy would result if his secret was revealed.

• Attended meetings in Gallows Heights neighborhood of New York.

  • Involved in some risky activities?

• The crime, as reported in
Coloreds’ Weekly Illustrated
:

  • Charles arrested by Det. William Simms for stealing large sum from Freedmen’s Trust in NY. Broke into the trust’s safe, witnesses saw him leave shortly after. His tools were found nearby. Most money was recovered. He was sentenced to five years in prison. No information about him after sentencing. Believed to have used his connections with early civil rights leaders to gain access to the trust.

• Charles’s correspondence:

  • Letter 1, to wife: Re: Draft Riots in 1863, great anti-black sentiment throughout NY state, lynchings, arson. Risk to property owned by blacks.

  • Letter 2, to wife: Charles at Battle of Appomattox at end of Civil War.

  • Letter 3, to wife: Involved in civil rights movement. Threatened for this work. Troubled by his secret.

In the 1920s the New Negro Movement, later called the Harlem Renaissance, erupted in New York City.

It involved an astonishing group of thinkers, artists, musicians and—mostly—writers who approached their art by looking at black life not from the viewpoint of white America but from their own perspective. This groundbreaking movement included men and women like the intellectuals Marcus Garvey and W. E. B. DuBois, writers like Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay and Countee Cullen, painters like William H. Johnson and John T. Biggers, and, of course, the musicians who provided the timeless sound track to it all, people like Duke Ellington, Josephine Baker, W. C. Handy, Eubie Blake.

In such a pantheon of brilliance, it was hard for any single artist’s voice to stand out, but if anyone’s did, it would perhaps be that of poet and novelist Langston Hughes, whose voice and message were typified by his simple words:
What happens to a dream deferred?/Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? . . . Or does it explode?

Many memorials to Hughes exist throughout the country, but certainly one of the biggest and most dynamic, and probably the one he’d have been most proud of, was an old, redbrick, four-story building in Harlem, located near Lennox Terrace on 135th Street.

Like all city schools, Langston Hughes High had
its problems. It was continually overcrowded and underfunded and struggled desperately to get and retain good teachers—and to keep students in class as well. It suffered from low graduation rates, violence in the halls, drugs, gangs, teen pregnancy and truancy. Still, the school had produced graduates who’d gone on to become lawyers, successful businessmen and -women, doctors, scientists, writers, dancers and musicians, politicians, professors. It had winning varsity teams, dozens of scholastic societies and arts clubs.

But for Geneva Settle, Langston Hughes High was more than these stats. It was the hub of her salvation, an island of comfort. As she saw the dirty brick walls come into view now, the fear and anxiety that had swarmed around her since the terrible incident at the museum that morning diminished considerably.

Detective Bell parked his car and, after he’d looked around for threats, they climbed out. He nodded toward a street corner and said to that young officer, Mr. Pulaski, “You wait out here.”

“Yes, sir.”

Geneva added to the detective, “You can wait here too, you want.”

He chuckled. “I’ll just come hang out with you for a bit, you don’t mind. Well, okay, I can see you
do
mind. But I think I’ll come along anyway.” He buttoned his jacket to hide his guns. “Nobody’ll pay me any mind.” He held up the social studies book.

Not answering, Geneva grimaced and they proceeded to the school. At the metal detector the girl showed her ID and Detective Bell subtly flashed his wallet and was let around the side of the device. It was just before fifth period, which started at 11:37, and the halls were crowded, kids milling around,
heading for the cafeteria or out to the school yard or onto the street for fast food. There was joking, dissing, flirting, making out. A fight or two. Chaos reigned.

“It’s my lunch period,” she called over the din. “I’ll go to the cafeteria and study. It’s this way.”

Three of her friends came up fast, Ramona, Challette, Janet. They fell into step beside her. They were smart girls, like her. Pleasant, never caused any trouble, on scholarship tracks. Yet—or maybe because of this—they weren’t particularly tight; none of them really just hung out. They’d go home after class, practice Suzuki violin or piano, volunteer for literacy groups or work on the spelling bee or Westinghouse science competitions, and, of course, study. Academics meant solitude. (Part of Geneva actually envied the school’s other cliques, like the gangsta girls, the blingstas, the jock-girls and the Angela Davis activist sistas.) But now these three were fluttering around her like best homegirls, huddling close, peppering her with questions. Did he touch you? You see his dick? Was he hard? D’you see the guy got capped? How close were you?

They’d all heard—from kids who came in late, or kids cutting class and watching TV. Even though the stories hadn’t mentioned Geneva by name, everybody knew she was at the center of the incident, thanks probably to Keesh.

Marella—a track star and fellow junior—walked by, saying, “What up, girlfriend? You down?”

“Yeah, I’m cool.”

The tall classmate squinted at Detective Bell and asked her, “Why’s a cop carrying yo’ book, Gen?”

“Ask him.”

The policeman laughed uneasily.

Fronting you’re a teacher. Hey, that’s def . . . .

Keesha Scott, clustered with her sister and some of her blingsta homegirls, gave Geneva a theatrical double-take. “Girl, you wack bitch,” she shouted. “Somebody give you a pass, you
take
a pass. Coulda kicked back, watched the soaps.” Grinned, nodded at the lunchroom. “Catch you later.”

Some of the students weren’t as kind. Halfway to the lunchroom, she heard a boy’s voice, “Yo, yo, it the Fox News bitch with the cracker over there. She still alive?”

“Thought somebody clip that ’ho.”

“Fuck, that debbie be too skinny to hit with anything but a breakdown.”

Raucous laughter erupted.

Detective Bell whirled around but the young men who’d called out those words disappeared in a sea of sweats and sports jerseys, baggy jeans and cargo pants and bare heads—hats being forbidden in the halls of Langston Hughes.

“It’s okay,” Geneva said, her jaw set, looking down. “Some of them, they don’t like it when you take school seriously, you know. Raising the curve.” She’d been student of the month a number of times and had a perfect attendance award for both of her prior years here. She was regularly on the principal’s honor roll, with her 98 percent average, and had been inducted into the National Honor Society at the formal ceremony last spring. “Doesn’t matter.”

Even the vicious insult of “blondie” or “debbie”—a black girl aspiring to be white—didn’t get to her. Since to some extent it was true.

At the lunchroom door a large, attractive black woman in a purple dress, with a board of education ID around her neck, came up to Mr. Bell. She identified herself as Mrs. Barton, a counselor. She’d heard
about the incident and wanted to know if Geneva was all right and if she wanted to talk with somebody in her department about it.

Oh, man, a counselor, the girl thought, her spirits dipping. Don’t need this shit now. “No,” she said. “I’m fine.”

“You sure? We could do a session this afternoon.”

“Really. I’m down. It’s cool.”

“I should call your parents.”

“They’re away.”

“You’re not alone, are you?” The woman frowned.

“I’m staying with my uncle.”

“And we’re looking out for her,” the detective said. Geneva noticed the woman didn’t even ask to see his ID, it was so obvious he was a cop.

“When’ll they be back, your folks?”

“They’re on their way. They were overseas.”

“You didn’t really need to come to school today.”

“I’ve got two tests. I don’t want to miss them.”

The woman gave a faint laugh and said to Mr. Bell, “I never took school as seriously as this. Probably should have.” A glance at the girl. “Are you sure you don’t want to go home?”

“I spent a lot of time studying for those tests,” she muttered. “I really want to take them.”

“All right. But after that I think you should go home and stay there for a few days. We’ll get your assignments to you.” Mrs. Barton stormed off to break up a pushing match between two boys.

When she was gone, the officer asked, “You have a problem with her?”

“It’s just, counselors . . . They’re always in your business, you know?”

He looked like, no, he didn’t know, but why should he? This wasn’t
his
world.

They started up the hall toward the cafeteria. As
they entered the noisy place, she nodded toward the short alcove leading to the girls’ restroom. “Is it okay if I go in there?”

“Sure. Just hold on a minute.”

He motioned to a woman teacher and whispered something to her, explaining the situation, Geneva assumed. The woman nodded and stepped inside the bathroom. Came out a moment later. “It’s empty.”